CARROLL: Volts to the rescue
By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published August 8, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Headlines warn that utility bills are going to rise this winter by 20 percent. Why? Because the price of natural gas is up. Why? In part because natural gas has been tapped again and again in recent years to generate electricity, putting a squeeze on supplies.
So what does oilman T. Boone Pickens, in his current all-out media blitz and road show, claim is the solution to our energy woes? Why, to use natural gas to power our vehicles, too!
If Pickens gets his way, the heating bills this winter could seem like quaint reminders of the Good Old Days.
You've probably seen Pickens' TV ads - and if you live in Lamar, where he stopped by this week to make his pitch, you may have seen him in person, too. For an 80-year-old tycoon, he's nothing if not relentless.
To be fair, there is another part to Pickens' prescription: spending $1.2 trillion to build wind farms and transmission lines to produce 20 percent of this nation's electricity. Surely that would relieve pressure to divert ever more natural gas for the same purpose. Right?
Maybe. But given rising demand for electricity and the growing number of canceled plans for coal-fired plants, it's highly unlikely that the use of natural gas to produce electricity is going to tank for many years.
Most Americans sympathize with Pickens' desire to break what he calls the "hammerlock of foreign oil." They also probably realize it won't be done by raising fuel standards for new vehicles - a subject of incessant congressional wrangling. Nor will it be done by replacing gasoline with ethanol - the necessary cropland simply doesn't exist.
The problem is that Pickens has chosen the wrong technology to replace the gasoline engine. The answer isn't natural gas. It's the electric motor.
If you want to get genuinely excited about prospects for the electric car, check out Jonathan Rauch's article in the July/August issue of the Atlantic Monthly on General Motors' determined - some would say reckless - efforts to produce the electric Volt by 2010.
"If it meets specifications," Rauch says, "it will charge up overnight from any standard electrical socket. It will go 40 miles on a charge. Then a small gasoline engine will ignite. . . . In generator mode, the car will drive hundreds of miles on a tank of gas, at about 50 miles per gallon. But about three-fourths of Americans commute less than 40 miles a day, so on most days most Volt drivers would use no gas at all."
Take that, Hugo Chavez.
Even if GM's Volt falls short, there's no denying that advances in lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized the prospects for electric cars. The May/June issue of MIT's Technology Review concludes, for example, that "Whatever their design, future cars will be likely to rely much more on electricity."
And here's an extra bonus: Not only would the transition to electric cars slow the flow of petrodollars to tyrants and crackpots, it might not even require expansion of electric capacity if vehicles were recharged at night. Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimate, in a paper released last November, that "up to 84 percent of U.S. cars, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles could be supported by the (present electric power) infrastructure" - assuming they had plug-in batteries capable of 33 miles - "although the local percentages vary by region."
I asked Robert Poole, who writes the monthly newsletter Surface Transportation Innovations for the Reason Foundation, what he thought of all the recent chatter about electric cars. Poole, who is a hard-headed realist about technological progress, participated in a formal test drive of GM's ill-fated EV1 electric car in 1996. His take on that vehicle, he recalls: "not ready for prime time." But today he's far more upbeat.
Nothing is certain when the goal is to ramp up an unrefined technology into mass production, he warns. Yet after a number of false starts, electric cars appear finally on the threshold of a major debut.
Vincent Carroll is editor of the editorial pages. Reach him at carrollv@RockyMountainNews.com.
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August 8, 2008
1:52 a.m.
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arby writes:
A question?
Natural gas is from wells right here in Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming Texas and Montana. So why does the cost of natural gas go up just because imported oil for fuel does.
As Mr. Shakspere said "There is something rotten in Denmark" It has just moved it's smell to the USA
August 8, 2008
2:02 a.m.
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arby writes:
Before you go out and buy a hybrid. The cost of replacing the battries is almost half the cost of the car! Then we are putting the greenies into heart failure with what to do with the used up batteries. And also the real world.
The moral, Vince, is think things through before hitting the keyboard.
August 8, 2008
2:36 a.m.
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Patron_Drinker writes:
Wow, arby, talk about the pot calling the kettle black....
The price of natural gas is up because demand is up. Demand is up because natural gas is being used to power power plants. Increasing demand by mandating natural gas be used to power automobiles as well will also increase the price.
Where in there do you see anything about the price of natural gas being tied to the price of oil, foreign or domestic?
The moral, arby, is to think before hitting the keyboard. Then think again before clicking the "Post comment" button. And again before hitting the "Post comment" button on the next screen.
August 8, 2008
2:43 a.m.
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Patron_Drinker writes:
Dodge has a concept car called the Zeo, with a range of 250 miles per charge and 0-60 times under 6 seconds....
http://www.dodge.com/en/autoshow/conc...
August 8, 2008
6:27 a.m.
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greenleaf writes:
Vince,
This may be the first time ever that I am in total agreement with you. Plug-in hybrids and electrics are the wave of at least the short- term future. We need to apply this technology to delivery and work vehicles as well.
August 8, 2008
6:56 a.m.
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greenleaf writes:
arby,
You apparently don't know much about hybrids. I own a 2006 Prius, the best car I have ever owned and that includes many American and foreign cars and work trucks.
According to information I have read in many automotive journals, the Prius NiCad batteries are very long lived. Many original batteries are still in use on first generation Prius which came out in 1997! Replacement batteries don't cost anywhere near 1/2 the cost of the car itself. A base model new Prius runs about 21K. New batteries currently run about 3K. The Price continues to drop. By the time I need them for my 2006 Prius they will likely be 2K or less.
It won't matter as I will probably trade my Prius in for a new plug-in hybrid when they become available. I will likely get a very good price for my old Prius as they are not depreciating. Demand far exceeds supply at this point.
Try doing a little research arby before spreading yet another urban myth!
August 8, 2008
7:19 a.m.
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VVVV writes:
The idea that wind replaces natural gas power is a lie. It may displace some of the gas burned, but with more wind turbines we will have to build MORE natural gas fired power plants, not less. When the wind stops, there is no other type of power plant that can respond quick enough to prevent the entire grid going black. And it won't make that power cheaper by any means. The faster the power can come online, the more expensive it is to purchase. Not only will we be paying a premium for wind power, but we will double it for the cost of emergency supply when the wind doesn't cooperate with our demand.
Base load power generation is the other half of the solution, nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, and yes even coal must be included to keep prices low, emissions low, and the source of fuel within our borders. The first three of these technologies produce no emissions, yet are fought tooth and nail by environmentalists. Electric cars are the easy part. Convincing people to accept the lesser of evils is practically impossible when all they look at is the pie in the sky.
August 8, 2008
8:44 a.m.
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HankRearden writes:
If you plan to use natural gas to make electricity to then charge batteries to power a car, you would be much better off running the car on natural gas directly. There an efficiency loss in each step of the process Natural Gas to Electricity is at best 50% efficient. Electric to batteries 40%-50%; Batteries to the car's drive system 50%. 50% x 50% x 50% = 12.5% efficiency. Burning NG in the car directly would be much more efficient (40%?). Charging the plug in hybrid using coal or nuclear, does work because there is excess coal and nuclear capacity at night. Use solar and wind when available. Natural Gas is an ideal transportation fuel because it has high energy density (1 pound goes a long way). Coal is an ideal fuel for electric generation (Low energy density, cheap and we have a 200-400 year supply)
T Boone is absolutely correct. Coal, wind and solar are all low-density energy sources which makes them ideal for stationary power generation (Electricity).
$1 of coal makes 200 kWhrs of electricity. $ 1 of natural gas makes 13 kWhrs. Natural gas is being wasted as a fuel for electric power generation.
August 8, 2008
8:48 a.m.
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vendari01 writes:
The only reliable (not dependent on the whims of nature) sources of power, available with today's technology, that do not use petrochemicals are nuclear fission, which cannot be handled negligently in any way, and requires storage of its waste products for something approaching a million years, and geothermal, which requires a lot of drilling (unless you're over a major source). As VVVV says, both are subject to major protest. Perhaps if more of the environmentalists were poor, or if they were responsible for making the alternate sources practical, rather than demanding this from others, we'd have less of a problem. We need viable answers, and we need them soon.
August 8, 2008
9:05 a.m.
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greenleaf writes:
vendari01,
Consider the flip side of the energy debate. Most environmentalists are also socially liberal. Those of us who believe in Global Warming also know that it will affect the poorest citizens of the world to the greatest degree. Accordingly, we are advocates of alternative energy, but also making those energy sources as efficient as possible as fast as possible. The days of cheap oil are probably past. Therefore to condemn us to a never ending competition with the rest of the world for dwindling supplies is almost certainly a way to punish the poor at the pump. Electric cars and hybrids as well as plug-in hybrids will be part of the solution. Early models may be too expensive for most, especially the poor to consider, but will increasingly decrease the demand for oil, and theoretically it's price until less expensive high MPG cars become available.
By the way, many environmentalists no longer oppose nuclear energy so long as maximum safeguards are in place. The major challenge for the nuclear industry will be the Nimby syndrome and finding investment dollars.
August 8, 2008
10:24 a.m.
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farmboy writes:
greenleaf,
I've got no problems with people who use electric cars or plug-in hybrids, but if they think they're avoiding something that environmentalists consider the enemy, they're just fooling themselves. Because if they use the power grid to charge their cars, they're using mostly coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric dams or some combination of these that generate the power in the first place.
"many environmentalists no longer oppose nuclear energy so long as maximum safeguards are in place."
Like the adage "The future never gets here", "maximum safeguards" can never get here either. Because no matter what safeguards are in place, there will always be someone who will claim they're not strong enough.
I'd settle with just reasonable safeguards.
August 8, 2008
10:49 a.m.
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greenleaf writes:
Farmboy,
Semantics always seem to get in the way. I can see how you would think that "maximum" means "regulated out of existence". I would be happy with the safeguards that allowed our most recent reactors to be built. I would like to see the latest high tech controls to be incorporated as well. I still say that Nimby will be the biggest obstacle. Now, of course if they were proposing situating a new plant 1 or 2 miles from where either of us live we might just demand something draconian and be Nimbys ourselves, don't you think?
I also have to add with the potential for storage that concentrating solar brings or the pumped storage that wind might bring to the equation, we might just be able to fill our"tanks" with off peak solar and wind in addition to electrons from other sources.
August 8, 2008
10:56 a.m.
Suggest removal
TroyJGrice writes:
The truth about the Volt is that it will have a list price of about $45,000. I'd prefer to spend $20K less on a gas guzzler. When you amortize that $20k savings over the car's life, it vastly exceeds the +20mpg benefit (less increased electrical costs).
GM is bankrupt, people! They have a $50 billion negative net worth. They are finished. Once you realize that, it is easy to draw the conclusion that the Volt is nothing more than a brilliant ploy to curry favor with a democratic legislature which will, in turn, bail out this inept and slovenly corporation with your tax dollars.
The Volt is not a panacea. It's a political bargaining chip.
August 8, 2008
11:37 a.m.
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HankRearden writes:
greenleaf,
Farmboy is correct. It goes beyond semantics. The standard for project licensing has been BACT or Best Available Control Technology. That is a defined term that outlines percentages, procedures etc for each type of resource. The Sierra Club has now moved to requiring MACT or Maximum Available Control Technology. This requires even greater technology/cost. The law of diminished returns kicks in just past BACT (Which was why it was adopted initially). It has moved from a real measurable benefit to a more punitive standard that punishes the developer, increases cost and provides no measurable benefit. An example of this would be to try to reduce the radiation level inside a power plant to a level below the natural background radiation level, or requiring a coal plant to have emissions cleaner that the surrounding air. These are very easy things to put down on paper, but impossible to achieve in the real world.
Are you aware that the Sierra Club has started to impede licensing for thermal solar projects in Arizona? They are requiring environmental impact studies that will no doubt raise the price of an already expensive but promising technology. As I’ve said before, nothing will please them so why should the rest of us suffer?
August 8, 2008
11:46 a.m.
Suggest removal
jay writes:
"if they use the power grid to charge their cars, they're using mostly coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric dams or some combination of these that generate the power in the first place"
that's just the point. if we can decrease our use of coal and ng to power electricity while increasing the electricity produced through wind and solar...electric cars become increasingly more efficient and reasonable solution.
August 8, 2008
11:56 a.m.
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greenleaf writes:
CheapEnergy,
I am a Sierra Club member but I work for change within that organization. Most of us understand that compromise is essential.
August 8, 2008
12:38 p.m.
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HankRearden writes:
Jay,
It is not a question of either/or. We need more coal and more wind and more solar. The investment in wind and solar is just not keeping up with current demand growth. If plug in hybrids become a reality, as I hope they will, we are going to need more coal and nuclear. A public back lash against renewables could result in trying to move to far and too fast. An increase in gas prices has everyone talking about more drilling. A huge increase in electric prices could be blamed on renewable mandates.
August 8, 2008
2:58 p.m.
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farmboy writes:
jay,
It's just not feasible.
As I pointed out on an earlier thread:
Let's do the math to see what that would require. The engine on a Honda Civic generates roughly 100 horsepower or about 74,600 watts. There are about 247 million cars in the U.S. 247 million * 74,600 watts = about 18.4 trillion watts.
So, it would require over 12 million 1.5-megawatt wind generators to provide that kind of power. If the density is about 12 wind generators per square mile, that's 1 million square miles (about 1/3 the size of the entire lower-48 states) taken up by nothing but wind generators.
Solar panels generate about 10 watts per square foot. So if we went solar instead, it would take 1.84 trillion square feet, over 66,000 square miles, of nothing but solar panels.
At http://www.solarhome.org/index.asp?Pa... you can buy a 10-watt solar panel for about $130. So to have enough of them to generate 18.4 trillion watts would cost over $239 trillion.
And that's if every car and truck on the road was replaced by an electric car that's no more powerful than a Honda Civic.
August 8, 2008
4:12 p.m.
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TroyJGrice writes:
I have a cheaper alternative. Instead of $239 Trillion on solar panels covering 66,000 miles. Let's just paint 66,000 miles of the earth's surface white. That should be more than sufficient to impact the earth's albido enough to offset all the CO^2 pumped out during the last 150 years. Plus, it will only cost a fraction of the cost of solar.
August 8, 2008
5:02 p.m.
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HankRearden writes:
farmboy,
Your point is made, but your math is off a little. If your electric Civic drives 10,000 miles per year at an average of 30 MPH it operates 333 hours per year. 74.6 kW x 333 hours results in 24,841 kWhrs per year or 24.841 MWhrs. A 1.5 MW wind turbine operating at 35% of the time (average for good wind) produces 4,599 MWhrs per year or enough energy to operate 185 ElectroCivics. So your numbers are overstated by 185 times.
However, having that much wind connected to the grid would cause other problems.
A single 750 MW coal plant would produce 6,241,500 MWhrs per year and power more than 250,000 ElectroCivics at less than 4.25 cents per mile. (Prius is 10 cents per mile assuming 40 MPG and $4.00 gas)
August 10, 2008
3 p.m.
Suggest removal
woodwose writes:
arby wonders "why does the cost of natural gas go up just because imported oil for fuel does."
The answer is, it doesn't. But natural gas prices are going up because the demand for it is going up. If we start throwing 10 million natural gas powered cars a year on the road the demand is going to go up a whole lot more. And sure as shinola, that's going to jack the price up a lot more.
Natural gas as substitute for gasoline to power cars is an insane idea that only a crazy, 80 year old coot who has extensive holdings in natural gas production could come up with.
Oh wait, that's a perfect description of T. Boone Pickens.
August 10, 2008
3:21 p.m.
Suggest removal
woodwose writes:
greenleaf:
Your condescension towards the poor shows that you are a true liberal. It's obvious that in a few years you expect to be tooling away in your high priced electric car that requires no gas, while the miserable poor will be reduced to driving the few old clunkers that still burn gas.
Undoubtedly, you are already dreaming of the day you can attack the drivers of gasoline powered cars the same way liberals have gone after cigarette smokers.
However, one thing you, TroyJGrice and a few others miss is that although the Volt is expected to have a sticker price of around $45,000, you can expect that to drop fairly quickly. As the manufacturing kinks get worked out, free market corporations will do what they do the best. Relentlessly bring costs down.
My parents spent $10,000 on an IBM XT in the early 1980's. It even had a 10 MB Hard Drive! Pretty silly to spend that much on that little of a computer these days.
New technology is always expensive. It costs a lot to research and develop it to the point where you can sell it. And those costs have to be recovered.
It also costs a lot to set up the tooling to build a totally new car. If you are only going to sell 10 of those cars, those tooling costs have to be split 10 ways in the price of those 10 cars. If you end up selling 10 million of those cars, the tooling cost per car is a million times less.
So yes, cars like the Prius, Volt, Tesla, etc, will be expensive at first, but as more and more of them are sold, the price will drop dramatically.
August 10, 2008
4:41 p.m.
Suggest removal
greenleaf writes:
woodwose,
I decided to check this thread one last time after being away for the weekend. I was initially pleased to see your "name" in the final posting, as we recently had a pleasant discussion. I was quickly disappointed!
First of all, while I am an environmentalist and social liberal, I am also a scientist and fiscally conservative businessman. Had you read more of my postings over time you would know, as many others do in this forum, that I would never as you put it be:
" dreaming of the day you can attack the drivers of gasoline powered cars the same way liberals have gone after cigarette smokers." I am not an attack dog for liberal or any other causes. I prefer to reason with people, teach them what I can and learn from them things I don't already know.
I am an early adopter of energy efficient technologies. As both a fiscal conservative and environmentalist, I was the first I know to use CFL bulbs (18 years ago), LEDS( 5 years ago), Solar hot water (30 years ago), solar electricity(2 years ago) and my Prius ( 2 years ago- a little late on that one but still the first in my circle). As an early adopter, I have paid more initially for products, to the point that others question my wisdom. I have always come out ahead and know that I have played a valuable part in driving the price downward for later adopters.
I see nothing condescending in what I said, I'm sorry that you did. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to defend you against the very liberal poster in the last thread that compared you to Sasquatch. I saw a lot more in your comments than he did. Now, I'm left wondering?
August 10, 2008
6:44 p.m.
Suggest removal
woodwose writes:
Greenleaf:
There were three things that rubbed me the wrong way about your post and I will spell them out for you.
First you stated that "most environmentalists are social liberals" as if you have to buy into to the whole anti-corporation, pro-government, nanny-state claptrap that social liberals try to ram down our throats to care about the planet. Too often conservatives are portrayed by the left as uncaring cretins that go out of their way to pollute the planet. And while most people that fit your definition of an "environmentalist" may also fit your definition of a "social liberal," concern for the environment is hardly a monopoly of elite, early adapter liberals like yourself.
Secondly, your glib characterization that Global Warming (spelled with caps like you write it) will hit the poor hardest is another one of those eye-rolling inducing statements that seem to be made reflexively every time liberals talk about real or imagined problems. Think of the famous parody of a NY Times headline, "World to End Tomorrow, Women and Minorities to be Hardest Hit." Your statement falls into to the same ridiculous category. If global warming is the impending disaster that some predict it to be, it will affect everyone in some way, both good and bad. To randomly group a whole bunch of people into some sympathetic arbitrary class, "the poor," and talk about the affects of some possible event or action as being particularly onerous for that class is a disingenuous way of making an argument. In simple terms, it's called going for the pity vote.
Finally, you talk about early model electric hybrids being too expensive for the poor, but throw them a scrap by noting that the more hybrids rich people buy the lower the demand for gas will be, which will lower the price for the poor people who have to get by on gasoline powered cars. If that's not condescending, what is?
Add to the fact that you brought up the storage potential for solar electric generating stations that you should know from our last little debate just isn't feasible, and you might understand why I was irritated by your post.
I accepted some of your points last time, I'm not making a big deal about the amount of mercury in CFL's any more, for example. I was sorry to see that your agreement with some of my points last week didn't last into this debate.
August 10, 2008
7:29 p.m.
Suggest removal
greenleaf writes:
woodwose,
I do see now that I was wrong.... to defend you in the last thread. I will respond to one point: I learned from a very conservative poster, whom I respect a great deal that concentrating solar technology with storage offers a great deal of potential. He should know better than either of us, he is a power engineer ( and a conservative Republican I might add!). Watch for him under the name of TryThinking. You can ask him yourself(in fact tell him I sent you!).
I haven't totally given up on you. You are intelligent and employ logic. You are however guilty of the attack dog tactics you wrongly accuse me of being willing to employ. If you seek to influence the debate, you can do better and I think you know it. Sorry, you'll probably consider friendly advice to be somehow "condescending". The truth is that I would like to see you do better because important concepts such as energy policy, our environment and other subjects of concern to our country deserve better than petty sniping and rather lame attacks such as that you just levelled. You can do much better woodwose. The question is: will you?
I hope that you at least consider it.
August 11, 2008
12:12 a.m.
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peterpi writes:
While I am pleased that Vincent has finally approved of a car that is not an oversized smog-spewing gas-guzzler, I fail to see how putting millions of electricity consuming cars on the road won't add to the fuel demand for the country's power plants. Vincent makes it sound like if you get all those electric-car users to charge their batteries at night, it's somehow a freebie. Well, none of those companies has figured out how to create electricity out of nothing. All that added electrical demand has to come from somewhere: Wind, solar (presumably from the daylight side of the globe), carbon fuels, nuclear, geothermal, etc.
Natural gas, in the forseeable future, will be part of the mix. So the demand for natural gas will go up, which in Vincent's column means natural gas prices will fall.
What is Vincent smoking?
August 11, 2008
5:14 p.m.
Suggest removal
dondavis writes:
I find it sad that Troy J Grice seems to relish in General Motots financial problems. Beside the fact they employ a large number of fellow americans, they also had a hand in helping this country win world war 2. Not to mention the years since that they have provided equipment to our military. As vetran i thank them for their service to this country. Something i am fairly certain Troy knows nothing about.
August 11, 2008
10:37 p.m.
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fatheromalley writes:
Actually the "engineer" is most likely working for something related to storage technology? (He writes smiling)
Fact.. disposal of the batteries to run the "electric motor" has not been established. There is no support infrastructure or replacement infrastructure in place. This slows public acceptance and places extremely high costs at that end of the spectrum.
Batteries to run the electric motors are non backward compatible with older cars.
While engineers might rave about potentials and scientists concur as in "global warming", the pragmatist would dismiss this technology as the wrong technology to get us swiftly off of foreign oil..
There is a carbon footprint in recharging batteries from your powerplants which are barely able to keep up with the draw of air conditioning in metro areas... place another several million vehicles charging on that system?
A more robust system is then required to supply the "charge" to millions of vehicles.
This same "storage" technology can be used NOW by using Electrolysis to convert water to Hydrogen...
Power plants will still need coal and natural gas for many decades to come. Face it... please before it is too late..
Trying to pull on a stalk of corn to make it grow faster might be worth "theoretical" discussion over a beer in a college dorm, but in real life, repair/replace/disposal/recycling all must be added to the cost of any "change in technology to serve the masses"..
Hydrogen run internal combustion engine technology is already there, it doesn't require massive amounts of money to "fortify" our electrical grid. It can be done locally, even at the gas station level with current technology.
You can harvest hydrogen from any substance that contains it.. including wood, corn, soy, grasses, water, natural gas even coal and oil..
Hydrogen is several times more efficient than gasoline which makes it even more efficient than ethanol.
Why the discussion? Oh, that's right, as long as we keep the debate going we don't have to make a decision, we can continue to "transition to a multitude of energy sources" that each contains it's own specialized "support structure". This is so much better than one energy source developed a multitude of ways..
Electricity is not our current answer, rather piggy back two existing technologies (Harvesting Hydrogen + Internal Combustion Engines).
www.fatheromalley.com
Love to all,
Father O'Malley
August 16, 2008
8:28 p.m.
Suggest removal
me2 writes:
I'm all for hydrogen energy. But the cleaner western coal creates a lot of jobs.